For Rudolf Bing at 88, Operatic Drama Lingers

Published: March 11, 1990

(Page 4 of 4)

Ms. Douglass's lawyer in the annulment action, Harvey I. Sladkus, said in a recent interview that the depletion of Sir Rudolf's estate was ''not due essentially to anything that my client has done.'' He argues that Mr. Guth overreacted to what he readily admits was odd behavior on Ms. Douglass's part.

According to an affidavit Mr. Guth filed last April, Ms. Douglass attempted to take Sir Rudolf to England a second time, in February 1988, but a nurse alerted Mr. Guth, who then managed to prevent it. In a court document filed shortly after the affidavit, Mr. Guth raised other charges against Ms. Douglass, noting that she had recently forced sexual activity upon an unwilling Sir Rudolf in the presence of a housekeeper at the Essex House. Ms. Douglass said that when Mr. Guth placed Sir Rudolf in the Hebrew Home, she was not notified of this decision in advance, and came home one day to find Sir Rudolf gone.

Ms. Douglass, who has married significantly older men on three occasions, has been hospitalized for psychiatric treatment at least three times, most recently in Bellevue Hospital at the time of the annulment. ''In my judgment as a lay person,'' said Mr. Sladkus, ''she went into a deep depression right after the decision came down.'' She now shares an apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side with a female roommate and has supported herself with menial employment.

Ms. Douglass does not accept the validity of the annulment. She still considers herself Sir Rudolf's wife and prefers to be called Lady Bing, yet in the course of a three-hour interview, she once plaintively referred to herself as ''his friend or wife or whatever you want to call me.'' She said she plans to appeal the annulment, though at the same time she seems resigned to the fact that Sir Rudolf may never again be able to live outside the Hebrew Home.

Though she has been described in the press as a ''gold digger,'' Ms. Douglass seems well aware that - now, at least - there is little gold left to dig, with most of Sir Rudolf's income going to pay for his care. Moreover, she herself had almost a quarter of a million dollars, from her share of family real-estate interests, forwarded to her in London, some of which she said she has used to pay legal fees. Mr. Guth has contended, however, that Ms. Douglass has secreted a sizable amount of money in England.

''It's really a tragic situation,'' said Mr. Sladkus, ''where the forces of power linked up with the judicial system to break up this romance, no matter how eccentric it was. I feel badly for her, and I feel badly for Sir Rudolf, because he's missing out on some degree of affection in his twilight years that he's never going to get again: holding a woman in his arms, even for a little while, as his wife.''

Controversial To the End

Until Sir Rudolf's mental condition deteriorates to a somewhat more drastic level, he will probably keep his present accommodations, whose cost, around $6,000 per month, is more than covered by his current income. Then, in all likelihood, he will be transferred to the Hebrew Home's skilled-care facility, which is more expensive but will give him access to money from insurance policies now unavailable to him.

His own public adventures, at least, appear to be behind him, but there are still enough Bing-related events boiling beneath the surface to keep him in the news throughout his remaining days. One wonders what Sir Rudolf, if possessed of his former self-awareness, candor and often self-deprecating wit, would make of it all. Chances are, his response would be irreverent and amusing. Then again, perhaps he would simply choose to reiterate the point made at the conclusion of ''A Knight at the Opera'': ''There is a difference between becoming famous and becoming controversial. I became controversial and enjoyed it. I was never anxious to be peaceful.''

THE BING ERA

Wielding his powerful position at the Metropolitan Opera with intense personal charisma over two decades, Sir Rudolf Bing ruled much of the operatic universe in autocratic fashion, nurturing young artists and cutting superstars down to size with equal enthusiasm. He oversaw the abandonment in 1966 of the stately but somewhat dilapidated old Metropolitan Opera House and the construction of a grand monument to his regime, the building the company now occupies, which dominates Lincoln Center. And for good or ill, his conservative musical and dramatic bent, predilection for Italian opera and concern for theatrical values yielded an identifiable artistic legacy.

From the outset, Sir Rudolf's Metropolitan regime was controversial. As famous as anything that took place during his eventful first season, 1950-51, was a nonevent: the 25th anniversary with the company of the popular Wagnerian tenor Lauritz Melchior. Whatever Sir Rudolf's original intentions (and the conductor Max Rudolf, his assistant manager at the time, insists they were honorable), the affair ended in a showdown. In early 1950, Melchior, still awaiting word of his re-engagement, served an ultimatum on Sir Rudolf, who called his bluff, ending the tenor's fabled career at the Met.

Perhaps even more famous was Sir Rudolf's contretemps with the soprano Maria Callas, who departed the Met after singing Tosca in 1965. Years of subsequent negotiations came to naught, but in this case the singer seems to have been the one pulling the strings, retaining her freedom to accept more lucrative offers elsewhere.

Sir Rudolf cultivated enemies as assiduously as he cultivated friends. When he left the Met, his former assistant John Gutman wrote of him: ''A martinet, a dictator, a soulless wooden statue of himself: if he has ever resented any of these epithets, he has not shown it.''

Roberta Peters, a soprano whose career at the Met began shortly after Sir Rudolf's own and who continues to visit him, holds a different view: ''I always got along with him very well. I found a very personable side to him that many people did not find: never very warm, but certainly friendly. It's too bad a career like that could end so tragically.''

Photos: Rudolf Bing in 1972, as he stepped down from his post at the Metropolitan Opera after 22 years (Associated Press) (pg. 1); Carroll Douglass with Sir Rudolf in England after their marriage in 1987 (Associated Press); The Goldfine Pavilion, left, and the Henry Kaufmann Pavilion, where Sir Rudolf lives today, at the Hebrew Home for the Aged (The New York Times/Jack Manning) Sir Rudolf Bing in 1972, outside the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center-a grand monument to his regime (Jack Mitchell) (pg. 32)